Are you a thick or thin-skinned writer? Coping with rejection etc.


Some writers are bold and brash, some are very timid.  Talent doesn't automatically produce confidence.  And confidence doesn't necessarily produce talent , although it probably helps it flower more readily.

Some of you - like myself - will have become more confident as time passes.  Not that it always helps.  Others may have been knocked back by a singularly savage review/criticism and taken ages to recover.

Some of us will have tried and tested 'damage limitation' strategies.  Others would probably welcome the chance to learn and try some of these.

As they say in exam questions...  Discuss.

Gyppo

Thin-skinned, I'm afraid.

Over the years I've learnt to deal with criticism in a (hopefully) professional manner. Most of the time. But it still hurts. Every time. Worse when I know the critic is correct and I messed up. I'm a perfectionist and can't stand it when I mess up.

I'm not sure.  Somewhere between the two, I think.  I tend to start off believing the critic is wrong but afraid that he's right, and end up feeling he might have picked up on something I missed but actually the piece is better than he recognised.

Criticism, if it's intelligent and skilful, is a vital part of a writer's learning process, and we don't want and can't afford to be too thick-skinned about it.  Nor should we be undermined and discouraged by the fact that someone isn't over the moon about everything we do.

I try to read all criticism with an open mind, identify where the critic has a point and learn from it.  But you can't please all the people all the time.  If I'm still happy with the book, I'm able to dismiss his opinion on the basis that it's just that: an opinion.  He might have been having a bad day, he might be an envious would-be novelist, he just might not like my kind of book. 

This is one of those junctures at which the traditional publishing route pays dividends over self-publishing.  I know my book was good enough to earn my agent's time and my publisher's advance.  If it was out there simply because I wanted to put it there, I might find it harder to put criticism in proportion.

Thick skinned. It is impossible to offend me.

I categorise any criticism I get:

- The person is trying to be helpful and has a valid and therefore useful point.
- The person is tying to be helpful, but I don't agree with their point. Nonetheless the very fact they have raised it makes it at least worth consideration.

I suppose there is a third case, which would be someone being malicious. I can't ever recall that happening to me and if it did it might go right over my head.

MH

It's not just about writing. I'm first crushed by any criticism, harsh or kind, needed or spiteful. I was raised by a perfectionist parent who expected his children to be even more perfect than he ever could be.

So the first thought is "I'm worthless."

But then, my thinking brain, not my child brain, kicks in and I think, "What the hell" but probably more likely a spicier word than hell.

After I get that part of my brain working, I can consider if I accept the criticism as a reflection of reality or not. If there is something of value to be learned, I make it a point to learn it. If it is simply a matter of taste or opinion or spite or anything else, I realize that it more a reflection of the critic than what is being criticized.

I try to learn from even the latter situation. The older I've gotten, the less trouble I have going from the worthless to WTF position and the less time it takes to get there.

Someone brilliant, and I'm not looking up who it was, said that we can all learn from everyone else, since everyone else knows things we don't. I try to remember that when idiots speak to me.

I do know it is supposed to be easier to take criticism when it is sandwiched in praise. False praise actually irks me more than sharp criticism. I don't need any more smoke blowing around. I'm really pretty damn good at patting myself on the back. Sometimes.

One of my former writing students wrote to me saying she was having a problem with a man in another writing class.  According to him nearly everything she did was wrong, and it was beginning to 'get to her'.  I asked if he was like this with everyone, but it seemed he only picked on the girls.  I recognised the type.

I asked if - casting aside wounded feelings - any of what he said was useful to her.  'Some' she replied, with refreshing candour.  I fished a little deeper and found that I agreed with some of what he said, but would have worded it differently to encourage rather than slap down.  Interestingly these were the things which she herself agreed with.

My final opinion was that he just disliked women, or perhaps felt threatened by women with clear talent.  Clearly a man driven by a fixed idea and - perhaps subconsciously - wanting to turn the 'student' into a clone of himself as that is his sole model for 'success'.

My advice was to trust her own instincts about anything he said, take and use anything she thought useful and simply discard the rest.

This is one of the problems with 'harsh critique'.  Not everyone will take the punch and then come back out, bloodied but determined to prove you wrong.  Some will hit the deck and just stay there.  There is a time for blunt and uncompromising comments, but not every time.

The young lady in question has a natural talent for writing, a pretty ruthless assessment of her own strengths and weaknesses, plus a willingness to tackle different genres as an experiment.  She has sold several items both in the UK and abroad.  But 'old misery guts' caught her in a weak moment.

The very real danger is that constant derision works like a 'dark hypnosis'.  Just as a positive idea/habit can be implanted by repetition so can a negative one.

The more you write the more confident you become about judging you own work.  You learn to judge it by what it is, an object in its own right, not what you'd like it to be.  The opposite of this is the new writer - bouncing back and forth between two contradictory if well-meaning advisers - instead of finding their own way.

Gyppo